Luther and the Bible
German New Testament
Wittenberg: [s.n., 1524]
Burke Union Rare Folio CB77 1524
When Luther refused to disavow his writings before an imperial assembly in 1521, thereby almost certainly assuring his own condemnation as a heretic, he famously did so in the following terms: “I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God.” As it happened, he was “kidnapped” by protective and powerful allies and hidden away at the elector of Saxony’s fortress of the Wartburg, where he grew out his monk’s tonsure and beard and assumed a false identity. His main project during this period was to translate the New Testament into contemporary German, a scholarly tour de force accomplished in ten weeks. As he translated Erasmus’s recently published edition of the Greek New Testament, he made forays into the surrounding area to research the living language of the people. His New Testament was published in 1522, with the entire Bible being completed in 1534.
For most of his adult life, Luther gave weekly lectures on the Bible. For him, the Bible was “the Word,” a New Testament term that could refer both the Christian message more generally and to Jesus Christ in particular. Luther and other reformers argued that “scripture alone” (sola scriptura) was the true authority for Christians, that is, the Bible understood without the traditions of interpretation, and the extra-biblical traditions, that the medieval Church regarded as possessing authority alongside scripture.
The claim to use the Bible “alone” was perhaps more aspirational than fully attained, as Luther’s Bible included both an introduction and prefaces to each book intended to guide readers into the text. While translating the New Testament, he also composed sermons to guide preachers in its correct interpretation.
Praised for its powerful and accessible style, Luther’s Bible sold tens of thousands of copies within a few decades, and is still used and respected today. Literacy rates had been rising in the 15th century, thanks in part to the printing press and an accompanying increase in the number of schools. The Renaissance humanist summons to go “back to the sources” (ad fontes) shaped reformers like Luther to privilege “original” texts over later interpretive and doctrinal traditions. However imperfectly realized, sola scriptura provided a tool both for attacking papal authority and for supporting emerging reformulations of belief and religious life. As the Reformation proceeded, the emphasis on direct experience of the scriptural text would result in a proliferation of perspectives and sometimes violent “conflicts of interpretation.”